Published: Friday, February 8, 2013 at 02:59 PM.

One man told me it was “Neck or nothing,” when I inquired his status. Another was “’Average. ‘bout average.” Yet another was “Not bad for a rough old cob.”

Just as there are responses for salutations, so there are wonderful valedictories for leave-taking.

For a couple of months back in the ‘70s, saying “I’ll be 10-10 and on the side” was employed. This was during the citizen band radio craze. It didn’t make much sense then and it doesn’t make much sense now.

“Well, I think I’ll hang it in,” is one of my favorites. The mayor of Ireland Street uses that one. Sounds like something a coon hunter would say at the end of the night.

How do you respond? Do you say “fine,” and let it go at that? Do you figure as long as someone’s asking, you should launch into a lengthy dissertation on your general health and habits?

I would never ask “how are you doing” to some people. It would take 15 minutes for them to catalogue their list of woes from alimentary canal to plantar warts. I once knew a woman who, when an employee at a drive-thru restaurant asked, “How are you today? May I have your order?” clogged up traffic for 10 minutes recounting the state of her carbuncle. The ordeal was so traumatic that those who work fast-food windows passed the legendary story among themselves to the point that you never hear someone ask that question again when you’re wanting to buy a quick burger. One woman affected an entire industry over something as simple as a greeting and a response over what turned out to simply be a benign boil.

When I was coming along, if someone asked how I was doing, I would answer, “Fine, thank you. And you?” They would respond “Very well, thank you.”

Now if a clerk even bothers to say “thank you,” many customers say, “thank you” right back at them. This can turn into an Alphonse-Gaston routine that heads off into bleak infinity.

If someone greets you with a “howdy,” you might “howdy” them right back.

If it comes at you like, “whatcha up to?” you might respond more colorfully, “I’m okey-dokey” or even “Just peachy.”

If someone asks, “Sup?” you’re on your own.

Hubert Tingen was one of my favorite people. Hubert lived within sight of my father’s store in Pleasant Hill. He was colorful in his language and colorful in his storytelling. His thumb was also colorful, being the smoker of filterless cigarettes which would burn to the nub in his fingers, giving them a deep chocolate hue.

“How’re you this this morning Mr. Hubert?” I’d greet him.

“So as to be about,” he’d reply. When’s the last time you heard someone say that? Never, I wager.

Sometimes he was “Tol’able. Jest tol’able.”

Other times he was “middlin’” or “fair to middlin’.”

At times you might catch him “pert” or “pert as common.”

Hubert was not the only character with colorful greetings.

One man told me it was “Neck or nothing,” when I inquired his status. Another was “’Average. ‘bout average.” Yet another was “Not bad for a rough old cob.”

Just as there are responses for salutations, so there are wonderful valedictories for leave-taking.

For a couple of months back in the ‘70s, saying “I’ll be 10-10 and on the side” was employed. This was during the citizen band radio craze. It didn’t make much sense then and it doesn’t make much sense now.

“Well, I think I’ll hang it in,” is one of my favorites. The mayor of Ireland Street uses that one. Sounds like something a coon hunter would say at the end of the night.

Speaking of hunters, there is also one farewell that describes dousing a fire and summoning your hunting dogs. It’s short, sweet, and entirely unprintable here.

“Vaya con dios” used to be employed a lot. There is a song by that title performed in the long-ago by Les Paul and Mary Ford. Also by the McGuire Sisters. And about five dozen more songbirds and chanteuses. Yet, do you hear it anymore in song or farewell? Nay.

The old words and phrases give way to the new, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t funny anymore. This was demonstrated this week to me by a fellow who told me that when he was growing up, he remembered three things about his daddy.

“He spoke of mony fever, which was something that I knew I didn’t want. It would kill you. He’d talk about getting a bresh after me. I didn’t know what that was, either, but I knew it was something I didn’t want. And when I asked him for permission to do something he’d say “askyourmammy. I thought it was one word.”

“Bresh” I knew meant brush, or stick. In other words, whipping switch. I’ve seen my share of those and agreed, you don’t want one. Askyourmammy was my father’s equivalent to “ask your mama.”

But mony fever? Pronounced “mo-nee,” emphasis on the first syllable. Huh?

Pneumonia fever.

When his dad was a boy, the mony fever could be a death sentence and, according to my friend, the local “cure” was a tea made from sheep manure. As you might imagine sheep manure tea was whittled down to an obvious alliterative phrase, making it sound every bit as bad as it tasted.

Someone in the neighborhood, ostensibly someone with a flock of sheep, would brew it for other folks and my friend remembers his dad talking about trudging through a deep snow to get a dose for someone in his family in their sick bed. The mental image of that poor child on a mission for sheepish …, er, sheep manure tea may haunt me forever.

See you later, alligator. After ‘while, crocodile. — Bobby Charles.

Jay Ashley is managing editor of the Times-News. Say “howdy” at jashley@thetimesnews.com